


left a bed in your shape

by merriell



Series: untitled kwaf spinoff [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Heavy Drinking, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 13:58:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19358389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriell/pseuds/merriell
Summary: LONDON, 2010. It was Friday night and Elias had asked for his presence.Oliver never had the heart to tell Elias 'no'.





	left a bed in your shape

**LONDON, 2010**

Oliver Foley swayed the olive inside his glass half-heartedly. The pub light barely enabled him to take a look at the menu across of him, but he’d been here frequent enough to know what to order. He turned away from the bar. No one had walked inside in the last five minutes.

Closing his eyes, he breathed in the familiar scent of night: of musk cologne, of slight smell of soap, of sweat under it, of slices of lemons under the table, of the variety of alcohol lining the shelves, before something cut in the middle: the mix of the antiseptic smell of hospital and wet soil after the rain. As if under spell, he opened his eyes and turned beside him.

“Thaddeus, long time no see,” Elias Macaulay smiled thinly at him.

Elias was a shorter man with slightly chubbier look to him, the build that came from privilege and studying, settling in his arms and stomach. He ran his hand through his tangled brown locks before sitting down on his Oliver’s right. His scent lived inside him and never left, rooted inside every part of him at any time; Oliver recognized it from years they’d been friends. He’d recognize it anywhere.

“Eli,” he remarked. “We’ve both been busy.” He shot a look at the bartender. “Two whiskeys on the rocks.”

“How’s Ilona?”

Oliver shrugged. “She’s well enough to work her bones every single day.”

“And I trust that Saoirse is fine as well?”

“Oh, she’s _fine_ alright. Five and already having all these activities. Not that I don’t approve it, I just want her to have as much fun as other children, alright,” Oliver chuckled as he remembered the tantrum Saoirse threw at their house because they wouldn’t let her go on a playdate with a friend of hers. Or rather, Ilona didn’t. “Who knows, we might have to send her to St. Lucia someday.”

The bartender slid their orders in front of them. Smoothly, Eli picked it up and took a shot. “This one’s mine too, I presume?” He took the other glass from Oliver before chuckling. “Don’t worry about her. You almost burned down your family’s house back then, didn’t you? And look where you are now. High Council—your late father would not see it coming.”

“I agree, my friend,” Oliver smiled at his own glass. He paused for a moment. He’d rather not bring that person up, but he knew better to do so, rather than risk any suspicions from Eli. “How’s Christopher?”

Christopher Winters, Eli’s partner, was someone that Oliver had not approve of. It had nothing to do about the rumors that circled around him the way cigarette smokes did every time Oliver saw him. He’d even swear it had nothing to do with his feelings for Eli, something that he never grew out of unlike his little fascination with setting fire into things. There was just something about him that Oliver could not pinpoint; or rather, how hard it was to find anything about him no matter how hard Oliver tried.

“Chris is great...”

Oliver raised his eyebrow at the lack of tone, almost like Eli was avoiding trying to talk about his partner, which was weird, because Eli was the type of person who was always gushing about his love interest, or whatever fixation he had for the moment. He wanted not to ask. He wanted to put a distance over them and their respective partners, especially as long as they were together.

He wouldn’t be a good friend if he didn’t ask. He certainly wouldn’t be _Oliver_ if he didn’t.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice softer than he intended to.

“Oh, it’s nothing too major,” Eli mused, feigning interest in his alcohol. “Can you... Can I stay the night at your place?”

Oliver used to be young, full of rage and pent-up fire in his throat, the kind that destroy every person in his path. It was why he was sent to a boarding school at the first place; his father thought that he could water his fascination to flame with education. Oliver walked out the school with the kind of patience that rivaled anyone. It had nothing and everything to do with the school: but no education had put out the fire, it simply turned to a different path.

“You know you can stay anytime,” he answered.

Elias Macaulay could ask him anything and he’d say yes, but the only one who needed to know that was himself.

 

*

 

His house was filled with new things. Things he couldn’t afford with his father’s request before: game consoles, computer devices far too expensive to afford, and books. The ones lining the shelves on his office were old, studies of elemental magic he’d acquired over the years. The collection in display was detrimental for his work, he said, as if he didn’t practically memorize through one five times and back with every one he afforded.

“You’re 30,” he heard the amused tone before he saw it, “and _still_ obsessed with fire.”

Oliver pushed open the globe hiding bottles of expensive alcohol in the corner. It didn’t budge, locked by magic. He made a gesture, a symbol of Runic used to unlock it. The globe opened with a shrill whistle. Must’ve been Ilona’s work. She always worried that Saoirse would’ve drunk it by mistake, although the keys to his office was already enchanted to only be opened by the two of them.

“Give me some credit. I’m not obsessed with fire, it’s just my line of work,” he picked up a bottle of fire rye and regarded it with a raised brow. It was a cheap, enchanted one, the kind that meant to knock you out.

“Yeah?” When Oliver glanced at him, Elias had done peering over his collection of books and was beside him, nicking the rye from his fingers. “You must forgive the fact that I don’t believe that.” With a hint of mischief, he dangled the bottle playfully in front of Oliver’s face.

“You pass judgement too much, Eli.”

“I simply point out what I see.”

“And what I see is,” he took the bottle back from Eli, quite easily, considering he towered three inches above him and there was nowhere for Eli to go. “a chance to get drunk, if you will.”

“God, are we 21?”

“We might feel like 21 again once we finish this,” and with that, Oliver opened the bottle with a simple sleight of his hand.

 

*

 

It was not long after they both found themselves in the couch at the side of the room, the glasses previously used to drink then lay abandoned near their feet. In turn, they drink from the bottles: it was still half-full, and yet, he knew that both of them were nearing their respective limits. Limits meaning, they were closing the gap between _drunk, blackout_ and _alcohol poisoning_ ; tricky thing, enchanted alcohol was, and the cheap ones tend to blur the line.

“I don’t know,” a hiccup, “why you still keep buying these things.”

His logic had blurred somewhere between the bottle. “These things? It seemed like it made a good furniture.”

“I mean this kind of alcohol, love.”

Oliver snapped slightly at that, but he only took the bottle from Oliver’s hand without so much as pointing out the nickname. He’d learn, over the years, that Eli’s tongue gets looser the more he drinks, that it never meant anything. It never meant anything _before_ and it would not mean anything now. He had his numerous hopes crushed already by words like _did that really happen last night?_

Although, Oliver was a stupid drunk, the kind that let his heart ache even when he knew he shouldn’t. “Jesus, we should stop drinking.”

“Is your wife not coming home tonight?”

“I don’t think so,” his brain struggled to find the reason why Ilona hadn’t come in like she always did, ushering them to bed as soon as she found them. “You didn’t tell me what happened with Chris.”

To his disbelief, Eli pouted at him. “Do I need to?” The sulky tone, the one that Oliver used to hear every time he wanted to get what he wanted, came back for a moment. “I already told you it’s nothing,” his voice then sounded slightly upset, “can we not talk about him? Let’s just be present...”

“Hey, you’re the one who brought up my wife.”

“Just making sure we’re not going to get chaperoned to bed.”

Oliver managed to roll his eyes at that. “You used to tell me everything.”

“You used to tell me nothing,” Eli replied. His gaze traveled to the ceiling. “It used to annoy me. It felt like you didn’t trust me.”

Suddenly, the red liquid in front of him just seemed so interesting. He stared at it and felt something pricking his eyes, making tears well. He wanted to say something, to defend himself from the fact: he had reasons why he was reserved. His secrets could ruin them.

“See? You clam up just like that,” remarked Eli. “We’ve been friends for so many years and you just keep doing that.”

“I...” his words got caught in his throat. Not even the rye could help. Over the years, he’d been drunk countless times in Eli’s company, not even once he had told him the truth. Even though he was a stupid drunk, even the _stupid_ part of him thought that it wasn’t wise to tell Eli about his feelings. It had nothing to do with the fact that Eli had no interest in men; Christopher’s presence suggested otherwise. It was everything to do with the fact that Eli had no interest in _him_.

“You should say it, whatever it is.”

Eli’s voice sounded so calm he might as well be sober. Oliver wished he was sober right now, it would have been easy just to pick Eli up and just push him into the guestroom, forget everything about this night. However, they were drunk, there was an irreversible ache in his chest he’d been feeling for ten years, and Eli was, as always, something that was not quite reachable.

And so, the part of his brain that still worked rolled and said: “I’m lucky to be your friend.”

A pause settled heavily around them.

Then, Eli roared into a laughter. “You’re such a _man_.”

Oliver smiled, more to himself than anything, before taking another swig. Sometimes he forgot that he fixated himself at Eli so much that he’d forgotten that he had never give any indication that he was interested in _men_.

No matter. He had a wife, and a daughter that looked at him like looking at stars.

Instead, he laughed. “You don’t need to put it like that.” He looked over to Eli and Eli was staring at him with a tinkle of mischief in his eyes, a lazy, but bright smile in his face. God, if he could be the recipient of that smile forever. If only that it wasn’t reserved for someone else.

He looked away.

Elias Macaulay has Christopher. He had Ilona, and _too late_ , he reprimanded himself, was an answer he _should_ be satisfied by.


End file.
